


careful the tale you tell, that is the spell

by Duck_Life



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blurry Woman (Supernatural: Carry On) is Eileen Leahy, Family, Fluff, Gen, Lawyer Sam Winchester, Parenthood, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Quote: Family Don't End With Blood (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: “First thing you need to know,” Sam says, clapping his son on the knee, “is that you have the coolest mom in the world.”He’s grateful that he can say this without having to lie, like he knows his brother did.“She’s a superhero,” he goes on. “She tracks down monsters. Monsters, like from the movies… and she stops them. And she keeps people safe.”
Relationships: Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester & Dean Leahy-Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	careful the tale you tell, that is the spell

Four scoops from the bag of coffee beans, poured into the grinder. Press and hold. Shake it to make sure there aren’t clumps, press down again. Coffee grounds into the filter into the machine, make sure the carafe is centered. Start the coffeemaker and listen to the drip, drip of the water. 

Sam has a long night ahead of him— a case against a coal plant accused of allowing runoff to seep into the nearest river. He’s got interviews and data to compile, an argument to build before he meets with the rest of the legal team tomorrow afternoon. 

And Eileen isn’t here. 

When she first told him she wanted to get back into the game, about a year after Dean was born, he’d balked. Told her he wasn’t ready, told her he didn’t think he’d ever be ready. Told her the idea of going on a hunt again made him feel physically ill, like a weight deep in his gut. 

And she’d told him,  _ I never said “we.”  _

And somehow, miraculously, it works. Sam goes to soccer games and rotates the laundry. Eileen kills the things that go bump in the night and comes home with gas station keychains for Dean and grisly stories for Sam. 

Sam’s proud of the work she does, just like he was proud of himself and his brother back when they were doing it. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t worry. Doesn’t mean he sleeps soundly on the nights when it’s just him in bed. 

But she’s fine right now, he knows she’s fine. She has a network, never goes hunting alone. About an hour ago he got a text from her, a selfie of her and Donna grinning with boxes of takeout. 

So she’s fine. And he needs to focus on this coal case. 

The decision to go back to law school had been strange. It felt like something a different version of him wanted. It felt like trying to fit into a pair of shoes he’d outgrown years ago. 

Eileen was the one who’d made it meaningful for him, helped him find a specialty and a cause he cared about. Jack had told him, the last time Sam saw him, that he’d be in the wind, in the rain and in the sea. 

So in a way, cracking down on the smog and the sludge and the coal ash human beings love to churn out feels almost like taking care of Jack. His first son. 

Sam does the PTA meetings and the leaf-raking and the white picket fence. Sometimes he still wakes up with the memory of blood, heavy and tacky and pooling at the back of his throat. Sometimes he still sees the devil out of the corner of his eye, and he has to press against the old scar on his palm. 

But it’s good, this life he’s built. He gets to go to sleep in the same bed every night. He gets to finish the books he gets from the library. He has a beautiful house and a well-kept yard, and he makes sure it’s all still standing when Eileen comes home from a hunt, makes sure she has a soft place to land. 

Still. He’s always antsy on the nights she doesn’t come home. The coffeemaker beeps, and he gets up to pour himself a cup, stirs in cream and sugar. Fighting down the feeling that he’s being clingy, he texts Eileen a quick “I love you.” 

She responds immediately, saying she loves him and misses him and adding a long string of kissy emojis, and Sam can’t help but smile.

Then he hears his son scream. 

Sam and Eileen are responsible. They keep the guns, knives and machetes locked up tight, out of reach so Dean can’t stumble upon them. 

But Eileen was hunting a djinn last week, and she still has the jar of lamb’s blood sitting on the floor of their closet. Sam sprints into his bedroom with his pistol at the ready only to find his son staring in horror at the viscous red blood seeping out of the jar and onto the floor. “Dean? You alright?” (He has said these words so many times in his life, and sometimes he wonders if naming his son after his brother was just a way to make sure he never has to stop saying these words.)

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry,” Dean cries out, hands up. “I was just— I jus’ wanted to try on Mom’s shoes? To see if I could walk them? And I knocked over that jar and it was real heavy and it’s… is that blood? Please don’t be mad.” 

Sam tucks the gun away and sighs, kneeling down to right the nearly empty jar. “I’m not mad,” he promises, helping his son step around the spill. “Let’s just… let’s just clean this up, okay?” 

He plants Dean on the foot of the bed and moves into the bathroom to soak a couple of washcloths. If he can get most of the blood up before it dries, it’ll be easier to clean. They’ve got some heavy duty carpet cleaner in the laundry room that should do the job. (There aren’t many skills that cross over between being a Hunter and being a parent, but getting out bloodstains is one of them. Sam’s saved several pairs of his son’s jeans from being irreparably damaged by a skinned knee or a picked scab.) 

While Sam cleans, he tries to ignore the questions that he can just feel bubbling under Dean’s silence. 

The third time Sam has to wring out the washcloths, Dean speaks up. “Is that your blood?” 

Sam sinks back down to the floor, dabbing at the blood. “No,” he says. “It’s not Mom’s either. This is lamb’s blood.” 

“Oh,” Dean says, as if that’s reasonable. Sam averts his eyes and tries to figure out how he’s supposed to approach this. Dean is the same age Sam was when he got The Talk. He and Eileen have been putting off telling him the truth about what her job is. But he can’t figure out a good lie as to why he and Eileen have a jar of blood sitting in their closet. 

And he doesn’t like lying to his kid. 

“Dean,” Sam says, pressing the washcloth into the carpet, “let me get this cleaned up before it stains. And then I’ll answer any questions you have. Okay?” 

Dean nods, sitting on his hands to keep from fidgeting. “Okay.” 

So Sam focuses on putting his home ec skills to good use. He rinses out the washcloths and tosses them in the washer when he goes to get the cleaning solution. He grabs a roll of paper towels and thoroughly sprays the spot on the carpet, blotting up what remains of the lamb’s blood. 

Dean watches patiently while Sam struggles to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to say. The few times he and Eileen have talked about how they might do this, they always imagined they’d be together. A united front. 

Sam wads up the damp paper towels and tosses them in the wastebasket before sitting down beside his son. “First thing you need to know,” he says, clapping Dean on the knee, “is that you have the coolest mom in the world.” 

He’s grateful that he can say this without having to lie, like he knows his brother did. 

“She’s a superhero,” he goes on. “She tracks down monsters. Monsters, like from the movies… and she stops them. And she keeps people safe.” 

Dean’s eyes are wide. “Who keeps  _ Mom _ safe?”

“Our friends,” Sam says. “People like Aunt Claire and Uncle Garth.” 

“They hunt monsters too?” Dean whispers. 

Sam frowns, trying to figure out how much nuance he can get into with a nine-year-old. “Mom and her friends go after the bad guys,” he says. “Monsters who are scaring people, hurting people. But being different— having fangs, having claws— it doesn’t make someone a bad guy.”

“There’s good monsters?” Dean says. “Like… Monsters Inc.?” 

Sam hasn’t seen that movie. But sure. “Yeah, like that,” Sam says. “Or like… okay, your Uncle Dean? You know, my brother?” He points to a photograph of him, Dean and Cas that sits on the dresser. “He met this vampire one time. You know what a vampire is?”

“Like in Buffy.”

“We might want to limit your TV time,” Sam mumbles, mostly to himself. “Sure. Like in Buffy. My brother’s friend was named Benny, and he didn’t try to hurt people. He drank blood that people had donated instead of attacking humans.”

“Like Angel.”

“I don’t— Dean, I don’t watch these shows. I don’t know.” 

“Did Benny have a soul?” Dean asks, all wide-eyed and sincere. “Do I have a soul?” 

Abruptly, Sam realizes that he’s in way over his head. When his brother told him the truth about Hunting, there’d been so much less to say. It was simple— monsters are real, Dad kills them. But this? This feels like Sam’s trying to give his kid the full inventory of Pandora’s box. 

Monsters are real. Mom kills them, but not all of them, because some monsters are just trying to lead honest lives and some monsters aren’t really monsters at all. Monsters are real, but you don’t need to be scared of them, and in fact, we had a family of werewolves over for last Sunday dinner. 

Monsters are real, and they killed all but one of your grandparents, who was actually killed by your big brother by accident. Monsters are real, and they’re the reason you don’t know the man you’re named after. Demons are real, but you don’t need to worry about them because your Auntie Rowena won’t ever let them hurt you. Angels are real, and we go on a fishing trip with one of them every summer. 

Sam and Eileen have been trying to make sure their son feels normal when nothing about his life is normal. 

“You know what?” Sam says. “You want some ice cream?”

The hastily prepared sundae seems to be keeping Dean occupied, but it’s just a stall. He has questions. Sam doesn’t know what to say. 

He calls his wife. 

“Sam?” Eileen says, her face popping up on the screen of his phone. “Everything okay?”

“Are you good?” he asks. “Can you talk?”

“We’re doing research,” she says, panning around so he can see the motel room. 

In the background, Donna waves and says, “Hi, Sam!”

“Hey, Donna,” he says back, a slight smile on his face. “So, Eileen… Dean’s asking questions.” 

“Tell him I’m at a conference,” she says back immediately, lie ready. “For industrial-strength vacuums. That’s a thing.” 

“No, I mean…” Sam sighs, rakes his hand through his hair. “He found the jar of lamb’s blood in the closet.”

“Shit,” Eileen says. “I meant to put that in the shed.”

“I know. It’s okay. It’s just,” Sam goes on, “I was trying to tell him… all of it. The truth. But there’s so much. I don’t know if I should be lying or… or omitting? Or trying to cover all of it?” 

Eileen frowns, fidgeting with the lore book in front of her while she thinks. “Just take it one question at a time,” she says finally. “And tell him that when I come home we can both sit down and have a longer talk with him.”

“One question at a time,” Sam repeats, gearing himself up for it. “Okay. Alright. I… I think I can do that.” 

“You got this,” Eileen promises. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” he says. “Good luck researching.” 

“Right now I’ve got the easy job,” she laughs. “Goodbye.” 

“Bye.” Sam ends the call, sinking down against the wall with the phone still cradled in his hand. One question at a time. He can do this. 

Maybe.

“So,” Sam says, sitting down at the kitchen table while Dean works through his ice cream. “You wan ted to know if Benny had a soul.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean has a dollop of whipped cream on his nose. Sam leans across the table to wipe it off.

“Yes. He did,” Sam says. “When Benny, uh, died, his soul went to Purgatory. Purgatory is the place where vampires and werewolves go when they die.” 

“Where will I go when I die?” 

Shit. Sam taps his fingers on the table, thinking about how any Good Christian Parent would be saying, “ _ Heaven, of course _ !”

But not lying is an important part of this, for him. “Well, when people die they go to Heaven or Hell,” he explains. “And if you… if you’re kind to others, and you try your hardest to do the right thing, you go to Heaven. If you’re… cruel, and hurt people, if you’re full of hate, you go to Hell.” This can’t possibly be the best way to explain this.

Dean looks scared. “You said Mom hurts the bad guys,” he says. “Is she gonna go to Hell?” 

“Mom’s already been to Hell.”  _ Shit _ . 

Dean’s spoon clatters into the bowl. “Because she was like you said? Because she was bad?”

“N-no,” Sam splutters, “because… some other bad people sent a Hellhound after her. That’s a kind of monster. It takes people to Hell, no matter if they’re good or bad.” 

“Did  _ those _ bad people go to Hell?”

“Yes,” Sam says. (He knows Arthur Ketch is in Hell. He’s had to listen at length to Rowena describing how “attentive” he is to his Queen’s desires.) 

“Am  _ I _ gonna go to Hell?” 

“I mean. You might,” Sam says. “It all comes down to your choices—”

“Hello, Sam.” 

Castiel is standing beside the kitchen island, prepared to interrupt this trainwreck of a conversation. “Please stop talking.”

“Cas? I… I didn’t pray for you—”

“I listened to the sound of idiocy and followed where it led,” Cas explains, sitting down beside the boy. Dean quickly wraps his arms around his uncle. 

“Cas? Am I gonna go to Hell?”

“Of course not,” Cas says, shooting a glare toward Sam. “And you have your whole life ahead of you, so you really don’t need to be worrying about what happens when it’s over. Not now.” 

Dean nods against the old trenchcoat. “Oh… okay.”

“Why don’t you go and get that model plane you were working on?” Cas asks, patting him on the shoulder. “I want to see how far you’ve gotten.” 

“Okay!” Dean bounces out of his seat and runs upstairs, looking somewhat relieved as he scampers away. 

“I was just trying to give him answers,” Sam explains. “Eileen and I decided to answer any questions he has.”

“Not like  _ that _ ,” Cas says. “Not like a… like a theology lesson. He’s a kid. You’re allowed to give him the answers that make him feel better and leave the tougher stuff for later.”

“You know, I didn’t ask for parenting advice.”

“Of course. My apologies,” Castiel says. 

“But I’m asking now,” Sam says. “Gimme. What the hell do I tell him?” 

Cas sighs, tipping back in the chair in a way that reminds Sam just a little of his son’s namesake. “Tell him the truth, but just the parts that make him feel safe,” he says. “Tell him that his parents know how to protect him. Tell him that it’s okay to be confused, and it’s okay to ask questions, and that he’ll have a long, long lifetime to find the answers to those questions.” 

Dean runs back downstairs, model plane in tow. He shows off his progress to Castiel, asks for advice. Cas starts getting into the aerodynamics of planes (and bees), and Sam smiles and gets up to pour fresh cups of coffee for himself and Cas. 

While Dean sits in the family room working on his plane, Sam and Cas sip coffee in companionable quiet. 

And Sam finally says, “Stories.”

“Hm?” 

“That’s what he needs,” Sam decides. “Not a theology lesson, not… not a bunch of lore. What Dean should know are the stories. Stories that aren’t mine to tell. Stories of all the people in his life— Rowena, Garth, Claire, Donna. He doesn’t have to hear it all from me and Eileen… he’s got a village.”

“I think,” Cas says, “that’s a wonderful idea.”

“Then you can go first.”

Cas coughs around his sip of coffee, eyes skating up to meet Sam’s. “What?”

“Tell Dean your story,” Sam says. “If… if you’re alright with it.”

Cas wipes his mouth, considering. “It’s not exactly a bedtime story.”

“It’s not his bedtime for another hour or so,” Sam points out.

“It’s a tragedy,” Castiel says. “From certain perspectives.”

Sam looks at him. He’s known Cas for over two decades now. His best friend. His family. Sam has gone to war with him, has watched him die, has sung along to Celine Dion with him in the car. 

“Not from where I’m sitting,” Sam says. He sits and sips his coffee with the angel of Thursday while his son builds a model plane in the next room. “Cas, it’d mean a lot to me. It’d mean a lot to the kid. And maybe next week we’ll take a trip up to Garth’s, and he can hear Garth’s story.” 

“Well. It’s a good idea,” Cas agrees, pushing away from the table. “And you have so few of those, so I may as well indulge this one.” 

“Jerk.”

“Assbutt.”

Sam finishes his coffee and gets up for another. In the other room, he can hear Castiel begin to tell Dean about watching a fish crawl out of the ocean. Sam returns his focus, finally, to his open laptop. 

He’s got work to do. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, then you're probably excited to know that I'm neck-deep in "Supernatural" fixation once again and I am planning to write a lot more fic for it. After the wild ride that was November 5th, I went ahead and watched the last 3 seasons of the show that I'd previously not seen. And I have so many thoughts and feelings about the characters that I'm going to have to write some stuff. Thank you for reading!


End file.
